'Think Tank' Issues Microsoft-Funded Troll

dlur (among many others) writes: "According to this ZDNet article, a Washington think tank known as the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is soon to release a study stating that Open Source Software allows terrorists an easy time hacking into our systems. It's little suprise that this group takes money from Microsoft." The Register's story is good too. All the whoring reports in the world won't make open source any less secure. This same institute backed destabilizing, unworkable '80s missile defense and thinks Alexis de Tocqueville would have wanted the V-22 Osprey deathplane. Also, see what their coin-operated policy dispenser spat out for internet privacy (eat what you're fed) and antitrust (advantage of Microsoft monopoly: "manufacturers of computer hardware need to provide only one driver"). We weren't going to run this, but there were a lot of submissions, so ...

Comments

One of their documents is self-contradictory.

[Chmarr]

The final sentence of Punishing Winners Hurts the Marketplace reads:

"We would be better off with more companies like Microsoft, not fewer."

However, how can we have more companies like Microsoft when that very article is condoning a monolopy? Yes, I acknowledge that they're probably talking about 'one monopoly in each market'. However, we all know that Microsoft is trying to take over as many markets as possible. How far away is Microsoft-branded Vegemite? :)

Stupid. Totally, absolutely stupid.

Re:Off-topic: missile defense

[DNS-and-BIND]

In a remarkable tete-a-tete with a US journalist and former arms control official, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, First Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff, interpreted the real meaning of SDI: "We cannot equal the quality of U.S. arms for a generation or two. Modern military power is based on technology, and technology is based on computers. In the US, small children play with computers.... Here, we don't even have computers in every office of the Defense Ministry. And for reasons you know well, we cannot make computers widely available in our society. We will never be able to catch up with you in modern arms until we have an economic revolution. And the question is whether we can have an economic revolution without a political revolution."

Read the last sentence over, and over, and over.

Re:Off-topic: missile defense

[LunaticLeo]

Disclaimer: I support a diverse set of missle defence systems. They are workable against a dozen lauches rather than several thousand. Defence against several thousand missile implausible in the extreme, and it only takes a few dozen multi-megaton bombs to end the world that I want to live in.

However, there in NO EVIDENCE that the Regan Administrations increase in defence spending, or much less their spending on missile defence systems. Please, take a look at the CIA fact books. The military spending by the Soviet Union DECREASED from the late 70s on.

Further, the time frame for this theory to be operative is between the first Regan budget for 1981 and Gorbachev(sp?) coming to power in 1984. Gorbi ended the cold war, and Gorbi ended the defacto Soviet Empire. The timing doesn't work, and the facts (from the above CIA factbooks) don't support that theory.

BTW, the increase in US military spending began with that submarine captain's Presidentcy (James Carter for those of you weak in US history). Carter started the Seawolf submarine program and the B2 Bomber program and many other wepon systems attributed to the Regan Administration.

I agree that the commentary that the Strategic Defense Initiative was destabilizing is LAME. However, what is being refered to is that in Game Theory if you have a defense against a mutually shared wepon with the power to mutually annihilate both combatants, you are more likely to feel you can use your wepon. A percieved protection by Star Wars Defense Shield, could fool stressed out people to "Go for it". But just think about what the US would be like if we did have 100% effectivity against Soviet missles, and the US successfully detonated a few dozen or hundreds of 10 megaton bombs on the Soviet Union. There was no victory scenario between the US and Soviet Union in a Nuclear exchange.

Re:Loudest

[mrsam]

What I do not understand is why there aren't any similar groups for the OpenSource / non-Darkside [ advocacy ]

I certainly hope there aren't any self-proclaimed Open Source/Free Software groups that pump out such logically-challenged, clue-free blather. I'd frankly be ashamed to see something on the same order, clue-wise, being used to promote the Open Source/Free Software philosophy.

Re:Loudest

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Honestly, I think the Linux community is better off without such a "darkside" group. The more effort that is spent on making actual progress, and NOT fighting the war of words that Microsoft so desperately wants to fight, the better off we'll be. Microsoft has been saying bad stuff about Linux for years -- they have endless supplies of cash to wage that war, and can neatly tie up the Linux community's resources that way.

I would say that any and all "intellectual" aid -- legal, political, research / reporting, etc. should be directed towards loosening or removing Microsoft's grip on public education and government markets. Right now, we have two major entities -- Peru and Taiwan -- that have taken the plunge and are attempting to eliminate their reliance on Microsoft products. We have the US government questioning for the first time how to better secure their networks. And in a time of relative national crisis, shouldn't security at all levels be of paramount concern?

MS has proven itself incapable of (or unwilling to?) improving the security of its code, despite its ubiquity. Open source can only get _more_ stable and secure as time passes, and users / white hats continue to help find bugs in the system. So why shouldn't we have people who are willing to evagenlize OpenSource do it, but to discredit MS by selling the idea behind using Linux et al?

But maybe that's just me........